The topside for TenneT’s Hollandse Kust (north) platform has departed the port of Hoboken in Antwerp.
Shipping on the 28th of September, the structure sailed on a floating pontoon to the port of IJmuiden. There, the topside will remain at the Leonarduskade until weather conditions are good and the installation vessel Orion is available to install the socket at sea.
Once the Orion has finished its current job in British waters, the vessel will sail from DEME’s fleet to the coast of North Holland.
The 3,500-tonne steel structure will then be installed 18.5km off the coast of Egmond aan Zee. There, the undercarriage (jacket) has already been firmly anchored to the seabed since November last year.
On site, the large crane on the Orion will lift the 47-metre-long, 35-metre-wide and 25-metre-high structure off the pontoon and places it on the undercarriage. The topside and jacket will then be welded together and the “socket at sea” will be commissioned in the coming months.
The installation of this topside marks another important step in the transition to renewable energy. With the connection for the wind farms Hollandse Kust (north), (west Alpha) and (west Beta), TenneT will make 2.1GW of sustainable power available to Dutch households, business and industry in the coming years.